Best-Of

Oh boy, here we go again. I actually managed to come up with a list of my top 3 this year, so let’s just cut to the chase, shall we? Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy LCD Soundsystem - This is Happening Titus Andronicus - The Monitor And the runner-ups in alphabetical order: Arcade Fire - The Suburbs Beach House - Teen Dream Best Coast - Crazy For You Das Racist - Shut Up, Dude Das Racist - Sit Down, Man Robyn - Body Talk The-Dream - Love King Toro Y Moi - Causers Of This Wavves - King of the Beach Wild Nothing - Gemini Xiu Xiu - Dear God, I Hate Myself Best EPs: ...

This year was something of an anomaly for me: I only went to five shows. Two of those shows, however, were music festivals and easily made up for the otherwise quiet concert calendar — Lollapalooza with a staggering 35 shows in three days and the Newport Folk Festival with another 6. I also went to 3 free shows at Madison Square Park: Jonatha Brooke, Raul Malo, and the John Scofield Trio. I’m a huge fan of Raul Malo and the Mavericks so we ended up braving some of the worst rain of the summer to see him. It rained through most of his shortened set, but it was still worth it.

I’ve been procrastinating publishing this latest post for several weeks now. I’ve had ample time to write it; that’s not the problem at all. No, I simply find it painfully, frustratingly difficult to narrow my collection down to only a handful of records, especially in a year with so many fantastic releases to choose from.